


Hands

by 2am_limbo



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Cabeswater - Freeform, Fluff, M/M, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish in Love, Soft Ronan Lynch, Soft Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:35:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26278765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2am_limbo/pseuds/2am_limbo
Summary: They were special, the two of them. The Magician and the Dreamer. The Universe made each of them. Put them on their own paths and waited for them to meet. Adam never believed in destiny or a god or anything other than what he was dealt, but the longer he shared his life with Ronan Lynch, the more he began to believe otherwise, and for him, this was proof.-----Cabeswater has one last gift.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 4
Kudos: 83





	Hands

Ronan loved Adam’s hands. It was a problem. One big, sometimes embarrassing, distracting problem. How long and elegant his fingers were, yet calloused from years of hard manual labor. How delicately they handled Ronan, as if Adam was afraid that Ronan was a figment of his imagination, that he would drift away from him if he wasn’t tethered to him in some way. How one hand would cup the back of his neck (and always at the right time when Ronan needed it most), or how both of his beautiful hands would find their perfectly fitted place right underneath each side of his jaw while his thumbs traced light patterns along the taut skin there. 

Sometimes late at night while Adam was sound asleep next to him, Ronan would allow his mind to drift and think about those gorgeous, irresistible hands on his skin. He would think about the other night and how Adam had come home late from Boyd’s and found Ronan asleep in their bed. Adam woke him up by gently lowering himself onto his elbows over top of Ronan, and gently cupping both sides of his face while the tips of his fingers tenderly smoothed over the soft stubble that had been growing above his ears. Ronan smiled to himself then at the memory as he remembered the undeniable look of adoration on Adam’s face when he sleepily opened his eyes to find him there, and then he would peacefully fall asleep.

Ronan cleared his mind from the undeniable path his memory was headed down, closed his car door, and headed up the driveway to the Barns with a small smile on his face. When he opened the front door, he stopped with an eyebrow raised as he found Adam laying on his back on the floor with one arm outspread and the other rested on his flat stomach. He was still in his work clothes from the shop, his coveralls unzipped to lay at his waist. Why was it that every single time Ronan ever looked at Adam, regardless of what he was doing, that his stomach started doing ridiculous somersaults and other impressive gymnastic maneuvers?

“Parrish?” Ronan asked from the doorway, “why are you on the floor?” Adam gave a quiet groan.

“I’m so, so tired,” Adam mumbled as he stretched his arms up past his head, which made his white t-shirt hike up to reveal his hip bones. Ronan’s breath hitched. “Floor feels nice,” Adam added quietly. He already sounded half asleep.

“And you couldn’t even make it to the couch?” 

Adam only made a humming noise and never opened his eyes. “I missed you, though,” Adam added sleepily. Ronan smiled then. Oh, how he adored this boy.

Ronan gently padded his way over to Adam after he kicked off his boots. He lowered himself down to the floor and hovered over Adam as he placed each hand on top of Adam’s shoulders. 

“I could always carry you upstairs, ya know,” Ronan teased in a husky voice.

Adam hummed at that. “If I had the strength, I’d be rolling my eyes right now,” Adam answered with his eyes still closed and a small smile on his lips. Ronan gently placed his lips on each eyelid.

“Better?”

“No.”

Ronan huffed dramatically and pulled himself up to his feet. He saw Adam frown but still didn’t open his eyes. It was too bad Adam couldn’t see the flash of mischief in his eyes. Ronan stood there for a second and sized up the slight boy in front of him. In one swift movement, Ronan bent down and picked him up, one hand below his shoulder blades, and the under behind his knees. Adam gasped then and his eyes shot open.

“Lynch, put me down,” Adam said evenly, but there was no heat to his words. He sounded amused and surprised and happy, and every time he made Adam look like that or made that one particular type of glow light up in his eyes, Ronan felt like his heart had stopped. He felt like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed and twisted, but it was such a satisfying feeling.

Ronan dropped him down on the bed with a  _ thump _ and then threw himself down on his stomach next to Adam. On his back, Adam rolled his head over to look at Ronan with a toothy grin, and there went Ronan’s heart again. Why did he even bother to breathe?

“You didn’t even ask where _ I  _ had been while you were passed out on our floor. I mean, I could’ve been stranded somewhere, or dead,” Ronan said with fake offense. Adam rolled his eyes.

“Fine. Where were you while I was passed out on our floor?” Ronan’s stomach flipped when Adam said that.  _ Our _ floor of  _ our _ home that we share  _ together _ .

Ronan cleared his throat dramatically, “Well, since you asked, Parrish,” Ronan began as they both turned to face each other, “Blue told me about this shop in town that sells one of a kind shit. Antique consignment shop or some shit, and I had a feeling…”

Adam raised an eyebrow, “A feeling,” he repeated with mock skepticism.

“Shut up, Parrish. Anyway,” Ronan began again, “I had a feeling that I should go check it out.” Ronan cleared his throat then and suddenly looked nervous. “So I was walking around this tiny-ass shop, and I found these, and I… loved them,” Ronan said that last part with a bit of confusion, almost as if he couldn’t believe how the entire situation worked out altogether. “They reminded me of you, and It felt almost like I was supposed to take them home.” As Ronan said this, it almost sounded like a question. He dug around in his pocket then and started to get annoyed when the lining began to bunch up around his fingers, but finally, Ronan pulled his hand out with a small black cardboard box that had a silver ink stamp of a moon. Intrigued, Adam sat up then and crossed his legs, and so Ronan followed. Ronan thought some more before he opened the box. He felt like he should say more, but then realized that he would only be attempting to mask his nervousness by doing so, and he never wanted to hide anything from Adam, ever. He learned that lesson long ago.

Yet Ronan was still a bit nervous. He knew he had no reason to be, but he couldn’t help it. This felt  _ big _ . He lifted the lid off the small box and dumped out two rings into his hand and then shrugged. He was too nervous to look up at Adam.

“What made it even stranger is that each of them was our size,” Ronan said quietly and held one of them up between his thumb and index finger for Adam to see. Adam held his hand out and Ronan gently placed it there. They both treated it as if it was an ancient relic. 

Adam looked down at it in his palm and his lips parted softly before he picked it up to examine it. It was a ring, but it was  _ special _ . Not the kind of special only because it was a gift, but like Ronan said… there was a feeling. It felt like Cabeswater. It felt like that warm and gentle tug that was always so omnipresent when he felt Cabeswater there with him, when it watched over him and protected him. It felt like Ronan. It felt like Ronan’s hand in his, and how when Ronan hugged him it felt like he was being  _ engulfed _ , that he was  _ home _ . It felt like Ronan’s eyes when they met his and they shared that unspoken vow of loyalty, and adoration, and love, and commitment.

The ring was made both of silver and gold, but it looked a bit tarnished with age, beautifully so. It consisted of three rings forged into one. The two outside rings were engraved silver pieces of wood, detailed beautifully to embellish each individual knot. The center ring consisted of beautiful golden twisting vines. As Adam stared and examined it, he began to tear up.

“Adam?”

It felt like everything he had struggled to build for himself over the years. It felt like  _ safe as life _ , and  _ tamquam alter idem _ , and the Barns, Opal, Chainsaw, and all of the things that Ronan has ever done for him.

“Why are you sad?” 

Ronan sounded concerned and sad himself, but Adam couldn’t quite make himself speak yet. He suddenly felt his chest tighten, but in a pleasant way. It was in the way that Cabeswater used to make its presence known if Adam wasn’t paying it enough attention. It was like his natural roots were taking hold, like Cabeswater was saying  _ hello, Magician _ .

“I’m not sad,” Adam said quietly as he slid the ring onto his left middle finger. It fit perfectly. “I think…” Adam paused, trying to figure out how to articulate what he wanted to say. “What you said about a feeling… I think this might be from Cabeswater,” Adam said quietly as he finally looked up at Ronan. Ronan had been watching him with concern, but when he saw Adam’s eyes, he became less concerned and instead became something else entirely that Adam couldn’t quite place.

Adam looked at the ring again now on his finger, his brows drawn together.. He slowly spun it around his finger and adored how it felt against his skin. It felt like leather car seats and gentle vibrations of a gear shift and lips gently tracing over deaf ears. 

“This is Cabeswater,” Adam finally said definitively. “I know it. I can feel it.” As Adam spoke this, his words began to speed up with happiness. It made him feel  _ hope _ . He could  _ feel _ it. This was it.

Ronan let out a relieved breath that he didn’t realize he had been holding, and beamed at Adam. Adam just looked at him with a steadily growing smile and shook his head at Ronan like he couldn’t believe that this beautiful person could even exist, let alone exist and choose to be with him.

They were special, the two of them, Adam realized as he watched Ronan slide on his matching band. The Magician and the Dreamer. The Universe made each of them. Put them on their own paths and waited for them to meet. Adam never believed in destiny or a god or anything other than what he was dealt, but the longer he shared his life with Ronan Lynch, the more he began to believe otherwise, and for him, this was proof.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone would like to see the ring, here it is: shorturl.at/b1478


End file.
